Today, amid the broad resurrection of America’s most beloved muscle cars in modern, idealized forms, we’ve seen yesterday’s BOSS 302 Mustangs, HEMI-powered Chargers and Challengers and most importantly, the Super Sport (and soon-to-be-released Z/28) Camaro reborn with drastically improved chassis architecture, wider and grippier tires, redesigned, body-roll minimizing suspension, and technologically refined-yet-equally-potent powerplants. In truth, today’s retro-inspired muscle cars are better all-around performers than their predecessors ever were, but still could use some suspension and handling improvements.

At the time, torsion bar front suspension, semi-elliptical leaf springs, and four-link solid axle rears riding on poly-glass Redline tires were the top-of-the-line for American performance. Grainy footage of GTOs reeling and rolling through slalom courses look understandably archaic and a little comical by today’s standards, but for the moment, it was the apex of road manners. As time has progressed, the muscle cars of yesterday have been branded as ill-handling, straight-line shooters, but cars like Z/28 Camaros, Dodge Chargers and Ford Torinos were advertised as the height in all-around road and track machines. Oh, how have things have changed…

Rick Andrade's '10 Super Sport was the test mule for Hotchkis' Race Pack suspension system. Lowered to hug the road harder, the chassis is tied together with Hotchkis' sub-frame connector kit effectively eliminating much of the Camaro's understeer.

Building the Better Camaro

Although several rungs higher on the evolutionary ladder than the car from which it was inspired, today’s 2010 Camaro SS is still shy of perfection. Initial impressions find the sport-tuned Super Sport’s suspension a little on the soggy side and struggle to keep the rear end from wagging frantically behind like the tail of an excited Labrador Retriever. While laser-precise driving skills and high dollar track tires are quick, immediate fixes, they don’t resolve the problems that arise when maneuvering on the road course or spiritedly around town.

Hotchkis Sport Suspension – who has unequivocally proven that they can make anything handle like its on rails – knew that, while an all new Camaro would be an improvement on any preceding Camaro, it still would benefit from their expertise and experience. The Hotchkis Sport Suspension engineering group has accrued a wealth of experience developing vastly improved suspension systems for a spanning selection of cars. The secret to Hotchkis’ recipe is testing…lots and lots of testing. In fact, all of Hotchkis’ components are tested on a 600 ft. slalom, 200 foot skid pad, and Willow Springs’ 14-turn autocross course. And just to hammer it down, Hotchkis then hits the 1320 for acceleration testing as well as some 60-to-0 braking.

Hotchkis' Race Pack Suspension Package is designed to transform your Super Sport 5th Gen. Camaro into a true track-carving machine. What's not pictured here is Hotchkis' strut spacers, which provides slightly more lift in the front to counteract the weight of an additonal supercharger if so equipped.

“The 2010 Camaro is a good car. It has good looks and great power, it just suffers from the typical stock car understeer,” Hotchkis’ namesake and founder, John Hotchkis admitted. “The Hotchkis suspension makes the car what we all hoped it would be, what it should be: a retro-inspired muscle car with nimble sporty handling.” Making the Camaro “nimble” might make some cower as the fully-loaded Super Sport tips the scales at 3896 lbs. with a 52/48 front-to-rear weight distribution. While redistributing the car’s weight is unlikely, Hotchkis sought out to make this linebacker lighter on its feet.

Hotchkis’ Complete 2010 Camaro Race Pack consists of the following:

• 2010 Camaro SS Sport Front and Rear Coil Springs (#19110)
• 2010 Camaro SS Adjustable Competition Sway Bars (#22110)
• 2010 Camaro Chassis Max Brace (#20104)
• 2010 Camaro Chassis Max Strut Brace (#20109)
• 2010 Camaro Front Strut Spacers, 1/2-inch lift (#38109)

The Sum of its Parts:

Part 1: Tying The Two Towers

Building the better Camaro started with giving a lot of thought to what trends were really taking off within the fifth generation Camaro community. That, accompanied with the flood of rumors concerning next year’s Z/28 package, Hotchkis purposefully designed their 2010 Camaro Chassis Max Strut Brace (#20104) to clear a top-mounted Roots-style supercharger. Not only does the strut brace clear aftermarket blowers but GM’s, allowing enough real estate for LSA or LS9 conversions. And for those running naturally aspirated engines, it’ll clear the factory intake manifold cover. Fabricated from lightweight 1 ¼-inch DOM steel tubing, the strut brace is ties the Camaro’s strut towers together at four mounting points, providing support from tension, compression and twist.

Installing the strut tower brace does require some drilling. Additionally, a unique reservoir relocation bracket is also included as the brace does interfere with the factory brake booster reservoir.

Part 2: Sub-Frame Subterfuge

As much as the strut tower brace reduces sub-frame flexing and increases chassis rigidity, it still isn’t a silver bullet. To really tighten up the Camaro, Hotchkis developed its Chassis Max Brace (#20104). During Hotchkis’ pre-testing trials, they found that the Camaro suffers from “significant chassis flex” and “wheel hop.” To keep the stock rear sub-frame from moving so much under hard acceleration, Hotchkis designed their chassis brace. “It takes the flex out of the rear, which results in noticeably more responsive steering,” John Hotchkis replied. Much more than that, the sub-frame brace drastically improves road stability, which means increased safety and predictability during hard driving.

It's hard to argue with Hotchkis' Max Chassis brace. Built from strong lightweight elliptical aluminum tubing, its excellent ground clearance fits with stock and most all aftermarket exhaust systems, and is a direct bolt-on installation.

The Max Chassis Brace reduces chassis flex and improves traction by geometrically-triangulating the rear sub-frame to the chassis frame rails. And since undercarriage space is at a premium, Hotchkis developed their chassis brace from strong-yet-surprisingly-lightweight elliptical aluminum tubing. The unique oval-rolled tubing is mated to laser-cut, CNC-machined aluminum brackets. And for those tuning their Camaros, the Chassis Max Brace clears most aftermarket exhaust systems. Bolting up to existing bolt holes, the sub-frame brace installs in minutes with hand tools. And since it’s finished in durable anthracite powder coating, the brace will still look good after a couple thousand miles.

Additionally, the Max Chassis is designed to compensate for the massive donut bushings in the GM independent rear suspension (a hold-over from the Holden). Those big bushings soften up the ride but give the car a “wallowy” lateral motion under hard acceleration and heavily contribute to wheel hop. Swapping those bushings out for aftermarket urethane parts will solve the wallow, but can result a pretty rough ride. This brace actually allows the rear suspension to travel up and down in its arc while driving over uneven surfaces, but eliminates the rear suspension’s tendency to move laterally.

Lightweight and durable, Hotchkis' adjustable sway bars are made with 1 1/4-inch tubing for the front and 1 3/8-inch tubing in rear. The fronts are an amazingly 210-percent stiffer than the stock SS anti-sway bars, while the rears are upwards to 800-percent stiffer than stock!

Part 3: Stepping Up to The Bar

Thankfully, some things still remain the same. When it comes to improving wheel-to-asphalt handling, there’s few options more potent that a good pair of sway bars. Hotchkis Competition Sway Bars (#22110F up front and #22110R in back ) are one of the quickest, easiest modifications to awaken up your Camaro’s cornering. Another direct bolt-on, Hotchkis’ sway bars virtually eliminate body roll thanks to their hefty 1 1/4-inch diameter high-strength tubing (up front) and 1 3/8-tubing (in rear). And since the rear bar has three-degrees of adjustablity, drivers are able to “dial-in” their individual Camaro according to how it responds to throttle steer and driver input. Of course, the Hotchkis sway bars come with heavy duty heim joints.

Hotchkis' Sport Coil Springs work with the factory struts, making them a direct bolt-in swap, but offer higher performance rates (210lbs/in. up front and 440 lbs/in. in rear)

Part 4: Springing Into Action

Unfortunately, too often when people hear aftermarket springs they think “lowering kit,” and while Hotchkis’ Sport Coil Springs (#19110) do drop the Camaro’s stance by a single inch, there’s a whole lot more thought going into these springs than just some parts store-bought lowering springs. Given the Camaro’s heft, Hotchkis aimed at lowering the Camaro’s center of gravity, providing the pony car better grip and handling through the corners. After hours of computer modeling and track testing, Hotchkis engineered these springs to maximize the Camaro’s handling in both aggressive cornering and casual driving. Walking that balance can be tricky, so striking the balance of front to rear was key to the formula.

Designed to drop the Camaro's center of gravity down by 1-inch, Hotchkis' Sport Coil Springs are made from cold-wound high tensile steel for significantly more strength over stock. Spring rates are impressive: 210lbs/in. in front and 440 lbs/in. in back.

The result was a Camaro with an aggressive stance and Corvette handling. And since they’re designed to work with the factory struts, the Hotchkis springs are a direct bolt-in replacement. Other springs on the market are shorter and stiffer than stock, but require a wire strap or tie to keep the spring from falling out of alignment in the case of full expansion. Hotchkis spent nearly six months developing these springs so the coils collapse inside each other at full compression, but at full expansion, they are still firmly locked in place.

For those Camaros that are too low due to aftermarket wheels or the added weight of a supercharger, Hotchkis created its Front Strut Spacers (#38109), CNC-machined aluminum spacers to fit between the front spring and the strut hat, creating ½-inch of needful lift. Like the springs, the spacers fit the factory strut and are even compatible with competitive aftermarket spring combinations as well as the stock springs.

On The Road

While we weren’t able to take Rick Andrade’s trick black and blue ’10 bruiser out on the track, we did have quite a bit of fun out on the surface streets around Hotchkis Sport Suspension’s facility. But not to worry, this Hotchkis test mule has seen its share of track time, officially and unofficially. Rick admits, “Oh, I’ve already taken her out to Willow Springs with the Camaro5 guys. I’ve already taken quite a few thousand miles-worth of life off of the tires.” On the street, the Camaro felt rigid – not stiff – even over rough City of Industry, California asphalt, hugging the road without bouncing like rock-hard race-tuned cars have a tendency to. Pulling hard corners under acceleration, snapping through gears, the Camaro’s tail never gave sway…well, unless Rick wanted it to.

Rick Andrade's '10 SS was tested extensively both alone and lined up against stock SS Camaros. Hotchkis prides itself on its mile-deep girth of testing knowledge, and apply all of that accrued experience into the building and fabrication of their sport suspension components.

Over the whine of the Magnuson TVS2300 supercharger, we were able to make the tires squeal only once in a rare while whipping around turns. Producing 604hp and 572 ft. lbs. of torque, Rick’s ’10 Camaro is a solid high 11-second car, clicking off an 11.86 at 119.9 mph at Firebird Raceway. Since the Camaro featured a MagnaFlow 3-inch Comp exhaust system and rolled on Axion AX-601 20x9s (up front) and 20x11s (in back) 3-piece forged wheels Hotchkis was able to design their Race Pack to both stock and heavily modified specifications.

Equipped with a pair of GoPro cameras to capture how the Camaro handled through the road course at Willow Springs, Hotchkis studied the modified Camaro's behavior in and out as it increased lateral g's through the skid pad, speed through the slalom course and cut two seconds off its total lap times.

But this Camaro isn’t just for looks. As mentioned, Rick Andrade’s ’10 Super Sport Camaro was used as a test mule for Hotchkis’ testing and tuning. Before and after testing proved the difference, when the stock suspension-equipped Camaro was first trailered out to Willow Springs. Rocking and reeling on the stock springs and fighting to keep the tail in check, the Camaro fetched a best 1:15.157 lap time. Compare that to the Hotchkis-equipped Camaro which landed a 1:13.490 lap time. Moreover, the Hotchkis-equipped Camaro increased it’s lateral-g’s from .85 to .88 while increasing it’s speed through the slalom course from a best of 67.1mph to 69.2mph.

In The End

Even though Hotchkis isn’t expecting owners of the 2010 Camaro to have their rides anywhere as customized as this one, they did design the Race Pack system to satisfy both the playful, hot rodder and the weekend track racer by offering equipment built to withstand the tortures of hard road course racing while retaining the Camaro’s civility via significantly better-than-stock spring rates, a comprehensive system of chassis braces and top tier front and rear sway bars. By reducing oversteer, increasing four-wheel stability and tightening up the chassis, the latest Camaro can run with its Corvette big brother, something which hasn’t happened in decades. Today’s muscle cars might be light years ahead of their predecessors, but are still in need of some TLC. And that’s where Hotchkis steps in.